By Patricia Mukhim
The Khasi people of whom I am a member actually believe we are a special species that landed straight from the land of milk and honey for that is what heaven is supposed to be. As they say a place where neither pain nor sorrow will touch us. No one told us for sure why we were thrown into this troubled earth and why seven families were chosen for this misadventure out of the sixteen families to whom we are tied by the same umbilical cord.
If you are a keen observer of society you cannot miss one societal obsession: a discussion about the past. And the other fixation is to determine who is a “real, “genuine,” “pure-blooded” Khasi because anything less would mean betrayal to the cause. What cause one might ask? The cause is what we hear every single day from groups that believe they alone love and care for the well-being of their people. They have internalized the notion that any Khasi born of parents who are not both pure-blooded Khasis are “khun shiteng,” a half-breed which is a highly derogatory term and is normally applied to animals. So, I am one among those half-breeds because although my mother was a Khasi my father was not. He was an Assamese Muslim. Normally because we are a matrilineal society meaning that lineage is from the mother’s clan line, my Khasi-ness should not have been in question but that’s where the rub lies. My intent no matter how genuine are always suspect but if a pure blooded Khasi were to say something ephemeral their words would be worth their weight in gold.
Today I write for all who find themselves in my situation – where our loyalties to the Khasi society or as self-proclaimed patriots call it, “jaitbynriew,” are invariably questioned. Facebook if full of such abominations. No matter how well a half-breed performs in their chosen field, they will always be treated like pariahs as if only pure-blooded Khasi individuals add value to the “jaitbynriew.”
In recent times there are a few people whose parents are both Khasis but who for their own valid reasons want to take the clan name (jaid) of their father. The society is up in arms against such individuals on the rigid condition that if a person takes the father’s clan name (kur) that person should no longer be considered a Khasi. Isn’t that a personal choice if that family keeps a clear account of the family tree and does not fall into “ka sang ka ma” (incest) by marrying into the same clan or natal connection (ka kpoh)?
A recent discussion on social media between mostly Khasi males says that if a man marries a non-Khasi, that woman can become a Khasi through the culture of “tang jait” a ceremony whereby a new clan is created for the non-Khasi woman. Her children will henceforth carry her clan name and not that of the father’s. We are informed by oral narratives that all the clan (kur) names prefixed with the word “khar” are of children born of a non-Khasi/ non-tribal mother. This also suggests a high number of mixed marriages, specifically men marrying non-Khasi women in the past. But its equally true that because of our interface with non-tribals particularly in Shillong there are many Khasi women who have married non-Khasi men. In the past there was a happy co-existence. But politics has queered the pitch forever. Some groups wanting the limelight pushed the idea that Khasi women are giving leverage to their non-Khasi husbands to do business in their names to evade income tax. If that non-tribal man is looking after his family and putting his earnings to good use for the well-being of the family why should anyone be offended by that? And we know of many such families in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Exceptions don’t make the rule and there may be some non-Khasi men who have abandoned/divorced their Khasi wives. Well, there may be an equal number if not more Khasi men too who have left their wives and children high and dry.
Now let me get back to the social media discussion. One social media warrior said that while it is alright to have the tang-jait for a Khasi male marrying a non-Khasi woman so that the offsprings are legitimate Khasis, it is not alright for the offsprings of a Khasi woman marrying a non-Khasi man to be called Khasis. For goodness sakes if the Khasis are a matrilineal society then should children born of a Khasi mother not be Khasi, more so if they adopt the Khasi culture and believe in “ka tip kur, tip kha” (to know the mother’s side of the family and also the father’s side). There are those who argue that if a person is born of a non-Khasi father the practice of “tip kha” is broken. Hence children born of a non-Khasi father should not be called Khasi and much less Scheduled Tribe.
And these are the issues that occupy our minds for the most part of the day. The next obsession is “culture” and there are attempts to lock up that culture such that it remains stuck at a particular time and space. Now is that really the definition of culture? The Welsh academic, cultural theorist who is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the academic discipline of cultural studies says “Culture is “a whole way of life.” It is not a museum exhibit frozen in time but a living process through which a community continually defines who it is. Hence culture is neither a relic nor a fashion. It is a living inheritance—constantly changing, yet seeking continuity with its roots. We cannot go back in time because that past is gone. The present and the future are what we are to deal with. Yet Khasis spend considerable time in writing songs that harp on a romantic past and organising functions where young women (supposed to be pure and untouched by sex) perform dances in their traditional dresses and men are dressed in the jainboh (dhoti) – something they have discarded as a daily attire decades ago. Do we really need to delve into the past and what do we derive from obsession with a past that is no longer serving our present needs. Sure we care about identity but that identity is better served by adopting progressive ideas and meeting the future and not skirting it out of fear of the unknown.
The future is daunting no doubt and if one looks at the state of our development indices they are dismal to say the least. I cannot but come back to our educational status which is the worst in the country and I ask myself – What are we doing about this horrifying state of affairs. Should we the public not be having meetings to come up with suggestions to the Government for it to begin to heal the sick educational status? The Government has told us that there 206 schools with zero enrolment in Meghalaya and 2,269 schools with fewer than 10 students out of roughly 14,500 schools in the state. Did any of us among the intelligentsia have anything to say about this abysmal state of things? Did we tell the Government that it should shut down these schools because they are leaching out funds meant for the schools that are functioning? No we went into silent mode as if the matter does not concern us at all; it only concerns the Government!
The moment the PGI report appeared and we were told in no uncertain terms that there are close to 2500 schools that have no children – only teachers twiddling their thumbs and drawing salaries month after month for years, we should have asked the Government to close down such schools. But no, we will remain silent on the most crucial causes that will take the state back decades since most of our rural kids are out of school doing menial jobs and instead beat the drum of culture and tradition until we go blue in the face. One is forced to ask the questions – What’s wrong with Khasi society?
True the urban folks are doing well and pursuing their education and other pursuits and going places but Meghalaya is more than Shillong or Jowai or Nongstoin. It lives in the periphery and no one cares about this periphery until one day the periphery rises up in arms and only then perhaps we will awake from our somnolence and stop romancing the past but deal with the present. We don’t seem able to envision the future we want for our younger generation. Those who can afford to have parceled off their kids to distant states to pursue education in the best schools. So, who’s left holding the baby? Only those rural kids whose parents cannot afford to send them to school because life is tough and single parenting is a curse.
So let’s wake up from our reverie and take the bull by the horns. Let’s stop focusing on differences arising out of khun-shiteng or khun-Khasi paka. These are intended to divert attention from real issues. Let’s deal with the ‘Crises in Education’. Or is that asking too much from the traditionalists and the custodians of Khasi culture?
